Advances in Direct Measurement of Structures and Permeability from 3D Tomographic Imaging

X-ray Microtomography (XMT) is a relatively new technology for measuring and characterising structures of materials at micron scales. It operates on the same principles as hospital CT scanners, but with much higher spatial resolution. Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) is a numerical technique for calculating flow distribution on a lattice grid – the same medium that XMT uses to digitally represent the scanned structures – and can accommodate solid boundaries of arbitrary geometry. This paper shows some applications of combining XMT and LBM, with an emphasis on permeability and related calculations.